​Nanophotonics pioneer Nikolay Zheludev elected to the United States National Academy of Engineering

Professor Nikolay Zheludev, a world-leading pioneer for photonics at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore), has been elected to the United States National Academy of Engineering (NAE). 

 

Election to the National Academy of Engineering, which has 2,297 US members and 272 foreign members, is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer.

 

Elected as a Foreign Member of the NAE, Prof Zheludev is honoured for his distinguished contributions to engineering, especially his leadership and technical contributions to optical metamaterials and nanophotonics, the technologies which emerged at the dawn of the 21st century on the crossroads of optics and nanotechnology.

 

“I am thrilled to have been elected to the National Academy of Engineering in the USA, one of the foremost international distinctions given to an engineer. As a physicist, I am particular pleased to be noticed as this illustrates my conviction of importance of fundamental research for developing advanced technologies. I am indebted to my colleagues at the NTU Photonics Institute for all the work that we did together and proud to be able to provide my small contribution to the outstanding reputation of NTU, a world-leading research intensive university and outstanding cradle of new science and technologies,” Prof Zheludev said.

This is his latest accolade, following his election into the Fellowship of The Royal Society in May 2018. The Royal Society is one of the most prestigious and oldest scientific academies in existence, whose fellows included eminent scientists such as Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.

 

Prof Zheludev’s breakthroughs include novel concepts in nanoscale structures, which could enhance and radically change optical properties on materials. He also developed new electromagnetic nanostructures that allowed for the observation and study of fundamental phenomena of light-matter interaction and light generation processes that are extremely hard to observe.

 

The discoveries made by Prof Zheludev could pave the way for future optical, opto-electronic and photonic applications, such as in optical information processing, data transfer and imaging.

 

The co-director of The Photonics Institute at NTU, a joint research institute formed in partnership with Southampton University in the United Kingdom, Prof Zheludev was also awarded the Thomas Young Medal in 2015 for his “global leadership and pioneering, seminal work in optical metamaterials and nanophotonics”. 

 

He is also the founding director of NTU’s Centre for Disruptive Photonic Technologies, the Editor-in-Chief of “Journal of Optics” (IOP Publishing) and an advisor to the Nature Publishing Group.